Tajzadeh's Letter to Khamenei: Now is the Time to Rectify Past Mistakes

Mostafa Tajzadeh, a jailed member of the Participation Front, in a letter to the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, has urged him to reconsider the disqualification of 60% of candidates to "facilitate a healthy competition" in the upcoming parliamentary elections. He warned that if the mass disqualification of candidates continues, the public will attribute it to Ayatollah Khamenei's policies. The former political deputy of the Ministry of Interior during Mohammad Khatami's administration wrote this letter from the "solitary confinement of Evin Prison," referencing the Leader's actions in "homogenizing the governance during Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's presidency" and stating that "now is the time to rectify mistakes." This letter was published on Sunday, January 24, on the website Kalemeh, close to Mir Hossein Mousavi, emphasizing that Khamenei was expected to call on the Guardian Council to "reconsider its trust-destroying and participation-hostile actions." Tajzadeh added: "Unfortunately, you did not say a word on this matter and instead defended the youth who, through their coercive actions, are becoming increasingly isolated in public opinion." On Wednesday, January 20, Khamenei, in a meeting with those involved in organizing the upcoming elections, implicitly defended the Guardian Council's action of disqualifying many candidates, stating that "nowhere in the world are those who do not accept the principle of the system allowed into decision-making centers." Khamenei also strongly objected to calling individuals he referred to as "faithful, revolutionary, and Hezbollah youth" as "extremists" in reference to the attack on the Saudi embassy. Tajzadeh pointed out that the term "disqualification" is not mentioned in the election law. He stated that the legal bodies responsible for responding to inquiries about candidates' qualifications, according to this resolution, are the judiciary, the Ministry of Intelligence, the police, and the Civil Registration Organization, not "legal but irresponsible bodies in elections" like the Revolutionary Guards and Basij. According to the resolution passed by the Expediency Council in 1999, the bodies reviewing candidates' qualifications are "obligated to examine candidates solely based on legal provisions and based on valid reasons and documents sent by responsible legal bodies to executive and supervisory authorities" and if they reject a candidate's qualification, they "must inform the candidate of the reason for disqualification." Tajzadeh revealed that at the time of this resolution's approval in the Expediency Council, only Mr. Jannati and a couple of other Guardian Council members did not vote in favor. Previously, Nejatollah Ebrahimian, the resigned spokesperson of the Guardian Council, had defined the difference between disqualification and "failure to ascertain qualifications," stating that disqualification pertains to candidates with a criminal record, whereas "failure to ascertain" qualifications relates to candidates whose political history and performance the Guardian Council has been unable to identify. However, Ghorbanali Dori Najafabadi, a member of the Assembly of Experts, considered the term "failure to ascertain qualifications" for candidates whose qualifications have not been confirmed as "playing with people's dignity." Tajzadeh further accused the Guardian Council of attempting to "engineer the elections" by broadly disqualifying reformist candidates. He stated that "almost all well-known and vote-winning reformist figures" refrained from registering for the parliamentary elections to avoid provoking the Supreme Leader's "sensitivity." He added: "If this situation continues with little change, and after the mass disqualification, some are confirmed in a trickle, [the people] will perceive it as the Leader's policy and, of course, detrimental to the homeland and the people and their faith." Many reformist figures and representatives from the sixth parliament, including members of the Organization of the Mojahedin of the Islamic Revolution and the Participation Front, as well as reformists who were arrested during the 2009 presidential elections, have not registered as candidates in the Islamic Consultative Assembly elections. However, according to Hossein Marashi, spokesperson for the Kargozaran Sazandegi Party, in Tehran, only five reformist candidates' qualifications have been approved, and in other electoral districts, only 25 reformist candidates have been confirmed. Tajzadeh wrote that the Supreme Leader referred to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's defeat in the 2009 presidential election as "his own defeat" in private meetings, and for this reason, "military and state forces" intervened in favor of Ahmadinejad in the elections. This imprisoned member of the Participation Front also accused Khamenei of supporting Ahmadinejad and, along with his statements in 2010 and in the ninth parliamentary elections, "opened the way for a single voice in governance." He stated that "the homogenization of the government" during Ahmadinejad's presidency led to "the collapse of the country's management structure... the principlists clawing at each other and creating black Sundays and revenge, and ultimately the systematic and widespread corruption and embezzlement in all branches of the government, along with unprecedented sanctions, while a competitive election that year could have prevented the implementation of oil and banking sanctions." Tajzadeh, addressing Khamenei, noted the regional problems and the rise of the Islamic State group, as well as internal issues, stating that "now is the time to rectify mistakes" and that "a competitive and extensive election is an appropriate response" to these issues. He concluded the letter by reminding that "the Guardian Council can at most prevent the formation of a parliament that matches this nation, but it can never form a parliament of its liking. This nation has proven that it can create a saga from the most engineered elections." The publication of this letter comes at a time when Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, head of the Expediency Council, criticized the dual behavior in reviewing candidates' qualifications, stating that the "filter" for reviewing candidates should not be "impassable for some and easy for others." Among reformists, several figures, including Hossein Marashi, Mohammad Reza Aref, and Abdolvahed Mousavi Lari, have emphasized that reformists will not "leave the political scene" despite widespread disqualifications and will attempt to introduce candidates close to "reformist principles." However, among the principlists, many Friday prayer leaders and appointees of Ayatollah Khamenei have repeatedly warned about the potential infiltration of enemies through elections, emphasizing the need to prevent critical figures from entering the Islamic Consultative Assembly and the Assembly of Experts.